Now The Horse Settles Down To Steady Hard Work, And At Last,
Catching Sight Of The Tiny Beach, He Breaks Away From The Boat And Strikes
Out For Himself, Reaching Shore Before The Rower.
Back they come for another.
Now we try two burros. Firmly they brace
themselves, and refuse to be pushed into the tawny flood. Then they dodge
and run and tangle each other up with their neck ropes, patiently
strangling each other with desperate insistence. At length they are pushed
in, and off they go. After a good ducking, they come up with a snort and a
bounce, a look of martyr-like meekness in their eyes, as they settle down
to the inevitable. No animal on earth can teach man more than a burro in
this regard. He accepts what can't be helped, makes the best of it, and
gains happiness out of every patch of thistles and grass he can push his
nose into. So, as we look into the eyes of these burros, as they rapidly
"paw" the current, we can see a look of expectation and content which
plainly says "Cheer up, brother, this will soon be over, and on the north
side we'll get better feed than we've been having lately."
A mule's desperate plunges to escape generally aid us to get him into the
water, for he loses his balance and is easily pushed in. But his look of
dazed surprise is comical when, after such a plunge, in which he sinks
below his head, he arises, snorts, blows the water out of his nostrils, and
begins to look about him.
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